Suchergebnisse

This article considers a relevant issue connected with the first wave of Russian emigrants returning to their homeland in the works of N. N. Berberova, a representative of the younger generation of writers. The theme of return and images of the Soviet people are studied with reference to The Billancourt Manuscript from the cycle The Billancourt Tales (1930) and the novel The Last and the First (1929).The analysis of the narrative structure of the story The Billancourt Manuscript, which has a two-level organisation (description of the funeral of a friend of the narrator's and reading his handwritten novel about his return to his homeland, Soviet Russia, the chronotope of a trip to the "dead" city and the author/main character's meetings with relatives — Soviet people), reveals Berberova's dystopian position as regards the idea of return, as well as aesthetic reflection on the tasks of émigré literature and the work as a "human document".Return as "catching" of emigrant souls organised by the Soviet government in the novel The Last and the First is analysed in connection with the story of resettlement of ordinary immigrants to the French province of Provence. Pochvennichestvo in its basis, coming from the Slavophiles and Dostoevsky, the idea of spiritual salvation on earth, perceived not religiously, had a social, cultural, and generational meaning for the novice writer and was opposed to the utopia of return. The images and behaviour of the Soviet "catchers of souls", the Kellerman father and son, unnecessarily bodily, focused on material benefits, unscrupulous, soulless, insidious, represent variants of new Soviet politicians, free from kinship and friendship, patriotism and compassion for their compatriots. ; В статье рассматривается актуальная для русских эмигрантов первой волны проблема возвращения на родину в творчестве представительницы младшего поколения писателей Н. Н. Берберовой. Материалом исследования темы возвращения и образов советских людей стал рассказ «Биянкурская рукопись» из цикла «Биянкурские праздники» (1930) и роман «Последние и первые» (1929).Анализ нарративной структуры рассказа «Биянкурская рукопись», имеющей двухуровневую организацию (описание похорон друга рассказчика и чтение его рукописного романа о возвращении на родину, в Советскую Россию, хронотопа путешествия в «совершенно мертвый» город и встречи автора-героя с родственниками — советскими людьми), обнажает антиутопическую позицию Берберовой в отношении идеи возвращения, а также эстетическую рефлексию о задачах эмигрантской литературы и произведении как «человеческом документе».Возвращение как организованное советским правительством «уловление» эмигрантских душ в романе «Последние и первые» анализируется в связи с сюжетом переселения простых эмигрантов во французскую провинцию, на земли Прованса. Почвенническая в своей основе, идущая от славянофилов и Достоевского, идея духовного спасения на земле, воспринятая не религиозно, для начинающей писательницы имела социальный, культурный и поколенческий смысл и противостояла утопии возвращения. В образах и поведении советских «ловцов душ» отца и сына Келлерманов, излишне телесных, ориентированных на материальные блага, беспринципных, бездушных, коварных, представлены варианты новых советских политиков, свободных от родственных и дружеских связей, патриотизма и сострадания к соотечественникам.

In their article "Zamyatin's Reception of Well's Fiction," Natalia Aksenova and Marina Albertovna Khatyamova examine several essays written by Yevgeny Zamyatin on Herbert Wells's texts and analyse Zamyatin's reception of Wells's work. Wells's ironic mindset, plot-driven writings, and attraction to parody drew Zamyatin's attention. Zamyatin felt a rapport with the central role of plot dynamics, unorthodox socialist politics, and dystopian tendencies in Wells's fiction. Discussions of the artistic qualities of Wells's writings allow Zamyatin to expound upon his own aesthetic program, known as "synthetism." In these discussions Zamyatin interprets Wells's work as a complex interpretation of technological modernity where the line between humans and gods is actively blurred, and traces the origins of Wellsian fiction to his predecessors, mostly English-language adventure writers. In doing so, Zamyatin gives Wells credit for extending the typical adventure novel into a philosophical realm while keeping it entertaining and captivating. Furthermore, in terms of the reimagining of the Apollonian and Dionisyan opposition as an opposition between English and Irish in Zamyatin's "English stories" of the same period, Wells is read as a typical Englishman: an unorthodox heretic. Ultimately, it becomes clear that these are the qualities that Zamyatin values most in Wells.

This article analyses the ego-documentary narratives authored by writers of the younger generation of the literature of the first wave of the Russian emigration. Writers like I. Odoevtseva (On the Banks of the Neva and On the Banks of the Seine), G. Kuznetsova (Grasse Diary), and N. Berberova (Italics Are Mine: Autobiography) turned out to be united by a common personal and literary fate. They established dialogue with literary predecessors, which largely determines the aesthetic position of the authors and their place in the literature of abroad. The memoirs of I. V. Odoevtseva, as memoirs of a participant in the literary life of the Silver Age and the first wave of emigration, make it possible to recreate and preserve the era in the faces of its most prominent representatives, not so much as poets but as unique people. The organisation of the narrative in the form of dialogues meets the task of directly "resurrecting" its characters in the mind of the future reader. G. N. Kuznetsova's diary/memoir has a two-pronged task: firstly, it helps form an aesthetic idea of émigré life and the circle close to Bunin. Also, in the memory of the descendants, it not only preserves a man but also a unique artist, who was ahead of his time and felt dramatically at odds with his literary era. Finally, it depicts the complex process of formation and self-identification of a creative personality in their dialogue with the literary "forefathers". N. N. Berberova, who creates a myth about herself and her contemporaries according to the laws of pan-aesthetic art, includes herself in the йmigrй literary canon with a "pantheon" of literary "ancestors" (with Khodasevich and Bunin at the centre): if not a writer of the first row, then an outstanding one, a talented creative personality keeping up with the times.